The Belper Games: A community event in Derbyshire raising money for Ataxia UK, The Scleroderma Society and The Pulmonary Fibrosis Trust

Project aim

A community event in Derbyshire raising money for Ataxia UK, The Scleroderma Society and The Pulmonary Fibrosis Trust

About the project

The Belper Games started life four years ago as a way to raise funds desperately needed for pioneering new treatment for Scleroderma and Pulmonary Fibrosis patient Penny Wheeler. We held an all day Its A Knockout contest with eleven teams of ten taking part and raised £4000 for Penny’s medication.

Sadly Penny lost her battle with illness in 2012 but at her request we carried on and made the Games even bigger and better. This year is our fourth year and its our most ambitious yet; we have almost quadrupled the event in size and seen the numbers of attendees swell to ridiculous figures. We now incorporate a street style market with jewellery, arts, crafts, services, etc. a hot food quarter, a real ale bar, a showground featuring stage talents of many local performers, a live music tent packed with musicians all day, an aftershow party, rides, attractions, lazertag, archery, a dog show and of course the Games themselves which now has over 300 participants. We are also debuting our new campsite for this year.

We run this event entirely voluntarily – there are only five of us, we all have jobs, families and even in one members case; a degenerative illness. We do this out of our own pocket too – we would love to grow this event not only for the fundraising capabilities but also for the community spirit it fosters as unexpected side affect. The whole town buzzes for this event and they all work together to help us achieve something amazing.

Its hard work, we wont lie. It causes fractions, stress, illness but we would never consider nto doing it. We just need a little help to keep the thing afloat.

The money we raise makes a real difference to people with these rare and undersupported conditions, allowing them precious quality time with their familes, research into new treatments and support at difficult times.